A brief encounter with, wait, was that Jimmy Fallon?

Was that Jimmy Fallon? Hey, that was Jimmy Fallon! I turned to look down the street where my friend J was looking. I couldn’t tell who it was. It was late, dark, and I was drunk.

My friend J and I were at Toronto’s famed Horseshoe Tavern, a bar with a reputation for attracting solid musical acts, including the Rolling Stones, The Tragically Hip, and Talking Heads, so it was not uncommon to spot famous actors when they were in town on a film shoot. It was part of the appeal of the place.

That night, we parked ourselves at a table on a tiny outdoor patio where we could smoke, so close to the sidewalk’s edge we could reach out and touch the black leather jackets of Queen West pedestrians as they passed by. Between trips to the loo, we smoked and drank pitchers of draught and laughed about the shared insanity of our workplace—a local talent agency for actors.

If J and I had given up our seats to go inside to see Danny Michel play songs from his latest album, we may have run into the SNL comedian, but we remained outside where we could smoke freely. And when the sun went down and the chilly evening turned cold, we remained steadfast, refusing to give up our seats by taking turns going to the loo, so that no one would snatch our table. Besides, neither J, nor I wanted to part with our beer money in favour of paying coverage charge for live entertainment. (Working in the margins of the film/tv industry is a labour of love that pays barely a living wage.)

It got late, the bar got busier. We could hear the band’s music as patrons headed in and out of the bar. Sitting out in the cold waiting for my turn to use the washroom, I peed my pants a little. My bloated bladder told me it was a mistake not going inside where it was warm. Now I was wet and cold, as well as hammered. It was time to go home.

Then it happened.

Jimmy Fallon exited the bar, walked a few feet, spun around and walked toward us, then turned again and headed down the street in the opposite direction.

J and I joked about ditching our tab and chasing down the actor. Details about what we planned to say are fuzzy, but it’s likely we cracked off about offering him a spot on our client roster.

With selfies and hashtags more than five years in the future, we have no proof of our celebrity encounter, and without smart phones, no photo exists. I wish it did because from where I was sitting, the dude looked a lot like Chris Kattan.